Basilan’s 1st ever greenhouse showcase project rising 

COTABATO CITY --- The Basilan provincial government is setting up a model greenhouse from where local sectors and hundreds of now reforming former Abu Sayyaf members can learn organic gardening as means of livelihood.

The now second-termer Basilan Gov. Jim Salliman led last March 7 the inauguration of his administration’s organic, drip-irrigated greenhouse project in Lumbang, Isabela City.

The project is two-pronged --- a learning facility to improve productivity of peasant communities and to complement the food security program of the Basilan provincial government.

Basilan is now touted as the new investment frontier in the Bangsamoro region owing to the dramatic improvements in recent years in its domestic security situation.

There was virtually "zero" kidnapping incident in Basilan since 2016, a total turnaround from its image as a bastion of the Abu Sayyaf that once used the province as harboring spot for hundreds of local and foreign captives snatched from its 11 towns and two cities and from the Zamboanga peninsula. 

Provincial officials and local executives in Basilan's capital, Lamitan City, and its 11 municipalities had secured the surrender in the past three years via backchannel intercession of more than 200 Abu Sayyaf bandits now being reintroduced to mainstream society.

Basilan Vice Yusop Alano was also present in the inauguration of the greenhouse project, premised on technology from a firm in Davao City that Salliman's office tapped for technical support.

The Basilan provincial government is also putting up another greenhouse in the municipality of the now markedly progressing Maluso town in the island province.

The greenhouse project is the first ever in Basilan, whose residents celebrated last March 7 the 46th founding anniversary of the province.